With In Good Company, Bede Benjamin Bidlack derives a theory of the body from the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin using his own, first-time translation of the thought of Daoist Xiao Yingsou.

Une analyse rigoureuse des expressions théologiques majeures en Afrique - les engagements et les textes des évêques, les déclarations écrites des conférences épiscopales, les coalitions des Églises chrétiennes, les oeuvres de certains théologiens africains - révèle qu’il existe bel et bien une théologie politique en Afrique. Celle-ci s’articule d’une part, en forme de critique sociopolitique des systèmes injustes et d’autre part, en forme de proposition d’une vision alternative de l’humanité et de la société qui découle de la foi en Dieu (...) Trinité. Cela dit, dans le contexte actuel de reconstruction, cette réflexion théologique pourrait être prolongée en intégrant une nouvelle perspective, celle de combat sociopolitique à mener par l’Église qui considère la communauté politique non comme un ennemi mais comme un partenaire pour la construction ou la reconstruction sociale. (shrink)

This is the only edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History which also offers the Greater Chronicle as well as his Letter to Egbert. The Chronicle and the Letter have been newly translated, and both they and the authoritative Colgrave translation of the Ecclesiastical History are supported by a detailed introduction and notes.

Mind in Action challenges the dominant view in contemporary philosophy that human action is driven by thoughts and desires much as a machine is made to function by the operation of physical causes. Bede Rundle rejects the materialist view of mind and the causal theory of action; his alternative approach elucidates such key concepts as thought, belief, desire, intention, and freedom to give a fresh view of human behavior.

The question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?', has a strong claim to be philosophy's central, and most perplexing, question; it has a capacity to set the head spinning which few other philosophical problems can rival. Bede Rundle challenges the stalemate between theistic and naturalistic explanations with a rigorous, properly philosophical approach, and presents some startlingly novel conclusions.

The status of theological claims is examined, initially in conjunction with the logical positivist's challenge to theism. This challenge is found to be only partially successful, but severe problems remain: we can make some headway with an appeal to analogy in defining God's attributes, but in general we lack a satisfactory account of the meaning of key theological propositions, and in some cases can condemn them as implicitly contradictory.

The preceding account of causation reveals it as bound to the physical every bit as much as are length, breadth, and depth. This makes any conception of divine agency difficult to defend, and a further problem is to be found in the consideration that a divine act, as of creation, would have to be temporally extended. God's relation to time is discussed, and it is argued that there is no call for an appeal to a creative act to explain the (...) continuing existence of the universe. (shrink)

The concept of causation has a key role in both theological and cosmological speculations. An analysis of the concept which runs counter to the Humean tradition is developed, an analysis which aims to assign necessity, regularity, and connection their appropriate roles in accounts of causation, induction, and laws of Nature. Backwards causation is also discussed.

It is difficult to see how purely philosophical considerations might lead to an understanding of why there should be anything at all. After looking at the cosmological and ontological arguments for the existence of God, and considering issues associated with the notions of essence and existence, a negative answer is returned to the question whether it makes sense to suppose that there might have been nothing. No particular being had to be, but there had to be something. This leads on (...) to a discussion of the question whether it can be said that the universe began to exist, as Big Bang cosmologies would appear to imply. (shrink)

Difficulties in invoking God in any explanatory role are pursued in connection with the possibility of miracles and the argument from design. The anthropic principle and the significance of ‘fine tuning’ are discussed, along with confusions concerning the laws of Nature. Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion is touched upon briefly.

Granted that there has to be something, the question arises why reality has taken the form it has. The possibilities divide into the physical, the supernatural, the mental, and the abstract. The supernatural has already been ruled out, and it is argued that, while neither the mental nor the abstract is in any way fundamental, if anything at all exists, there must be a physical reality. Some light is thrown on the contentious topic of necessary existence by a consideration of (...) mathematical necessity. (shrink)

The claim of mind to be more basic than matter is considered, as also its relation to agency. Spirits, forces, and energy are then discussed, and our conclusion is reinforced that, while it is nonsensical to hold that everything is material, we can maintain that, if anything exists, matter does, on the grounds that it is only in matter that the necessary independent existence is to be found.

The question whether the universe has existed for an infinite or only a finite time, along with the question whether a causal series might go back infinitely far into the past, has loomed large in attempts to prove the existence of God. These questions, together with that of the extent of the future, are now discussed. They lead us to consider the principle of sufficient reason and to ask whether there can be any ultimate explanations, whether the regress of explanations (...) can ever be brought to a satisfactory end. (shrink)

Whereas religions around the world are being challenged to reexamine both their tenets and practice in the ominous wake of ecological deterioration, one particular challenge they face is cosmological. As a global consumer society becomes more prominent, religious ecological thinkers such as “geologian” Thomas Berry assert that a cosmology of commodification is supplanting not only individual religious cosmologies but also the human appreciation of and relationship to the universe itself.

Heather, Bede Review of: Neither jew nor Greek: A contested identity, by James D. G. Dunn, Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2015, pp. 946, $62.19.